#9 - All potatoes naturally contain solanine, which is poisonous in

[Administrator]

Complete Question Explanation

Justify the Conclusion. The correct answer choice is (C).

Answer choice (A):

Answer choice (B):

Answer choice (C): This is the correct answer choice.

Answer choice (D):

Answer choice (E):

This explanation is still in progress. Please post any questions below!

[salgado145]

hello
how should I approach Justify conclusion
I was between B and C . Thank you

[Adam Tyson]

To justify a conclusion, salgado, you need an answer that is strong enough to prove the conclusion is true. It should eliminate all doubt.

Start by focusing on the conclusion. This author wants you to believe that a peeled wild potato is at least as safe as an unpeeled domestic potato. That's a pretty bold claim! They sure didn't give us much reason to believe that. Just because most of the poison is in the skin doesn't mean removing the skin gets you to a point where the two things are equal. Wild potatoes could still be far more poisonous than domestic ones, even with the skin removed. Imagine, for example, that a wild potato has 10mg of solanine, while a domestic potato has just 1mg. Now imagine that the skin of the wild potato has 7mg of solanine. Even after peeling the wild one, it will still have 3mg, which is still more than the 1mg in the domestic one.

This question basically boils down to a math problem. We don't have enough information about the relative numbers in wild vs domestic potatoes. To prove that the author is right, we need some numeric information to fix that problem. So we need to look for an answer that guarantees that the math will check out. maybe it will give us hard numbers, or maybe it will just give us relative ones.

Answer C does that math for us, even though it gives us no specific numbers. If a peeled wild potato doesn't have more solanine than an unpeeled domestic one, then our math problem is solved. The wild one, once peeled, will either have the same amount as the domestic one, or else it will have less. Either way, then, it's going to be at least as safe, at least as far as solanine is concerned.

Answer B does nothing to help us with the math. Using my numbers above, let's say that 7mg is a poisonous amount. Fine, but so what? The peeled wild one could still end up with more than the unpeeled domestic one (3mg > 1mg, in my hypothetical). It's not the amount in the skin that we want to know about; it's the relative amount left after we remove the skin that matters.

Justify = prove. Remove all doubt. Sometimes it's just about fixing a problem, as here.

[testprep2001]

Hi! Can someone explain why D is incorrect? I understand why C is the correct answer, but am confused why D is incorrect. To me, it feels like the author makes a considerable jump between the absence/presence of solanine and how safe either potato is to eat. Thank you!

[Adam Tyson]

Let's try the negation technique on that answer, testprep2001: what if domesticated potatoes do have some other poisonous substance in them? Would that ruin that claim that peeled wild potatoes are at least as safe to eat as unpeeled domesticated ones? Not that they are 100% safe - that's not the claim here - but just that the wild ones, once peeled, are not any worse than the unpeeled domesticated ones. I don't see answer D, which deals with possible problems in the domestic potatoes, as having any impact at all on that comparison. Now, if this answer had said that the wild ones don't have some other poisonous substance that domestic ones don't have, then we might be onto something, but this answer is about the domestic ones.

Be aware of that relative nature of the conclusion, which is that one thing is as safe as the other. That doesn't mean that either one of them is safe, but only that the wild ones are not less safe.